How many lives does a drone have?
24 March 2017
Annette
We're here in the Loreto area and the weather is perfect. Light breezes, just enough to cool us down and keep the bobo's from becoming annoying. Our entertainment here is the whale show and Wonder Bug our drone. As we drift around the islands off the coast of Loreto there is a constant sound of whale blows, singing and fin slapping. Mike is getting a lot of practice at launching and landing Wonder Bug off the boat, often times sending it up to two miles away to capture fantastic videos of whales going about they're business. With the drone we're able to follow the whales and observe them for long periods of time. We're able to see them doing what they do, they're no longer just a fin or a fluke sticking out of the water. However, there have been two VERY close calls...The first while landing the bug as the boat was still moving. The drone has an obstacle avoidance safety feature, which causes the drone to stop if there is anything in front of it. As we drifted at 2 knots, Mike maneuvered the drone to land on the trampoline up forward. Once the drone was about two feet above the trampoline, it saw the rigging at the front of the boat, perceived it as an obstacle and stopped. Unfortunately, the boat was still moving. Mike tried to get it back up before the boat hit it, but the drone hit the rigging and crashed, slid down the rigging, becoming tangled in the lifelines where we rushed to grab it before it could go overboard. Close call, lesson learned, turn off obstacle safety feature when flying from the boat. The second time was when launching the bug while underway. Mike launched the drone off the surf boards which lie on top of the dingy davits like he's done several times before, but for some reason this time after it took off it went a foot in the air then all of the sudden the motors stopped and it fell like a brick, hitting the surfboards before tumbling into the dinghy where it just caught on the railing.
How many lives does this bug have?? We're hoping at least 9.